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Parallel Disappointments, January 8
Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the
patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is
very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
James 5:11
.
Not infrequently the minds of the people, and even of God’s servants,
are so blinded by human opinions, the traditions and false teaching of men,
that they are able only partially to grasp the great things which He has
revealed in His word. Thus it was with the disciples of Christ, even when
the Saviour was with them in person. Their minds had become imbued
with the popular conception of the Messiah as a temporal prince, who was
to exalt Israel to the throne of the universal empire, and they could not
understand the meaning of His words foretelling His sufferings and death....
From their very birth their hearts had been set upon the anticipated glory
of an earthly empire, and this blinded their understanding....
The experience of the disciples who preached the “gospel of the king-
dom” at the first advent of Christ, had its counterpart in the experience of
those who proclaimed the message of His second advent....
Like the first disciples, William Miller and his associates did not, them-
selves, fully comprehend the import of the message which they bore. Errors
that had been long established in the church prevented them from arriving
at a correct interpretation of an important point in the prophecy. Therefore,
though they proclaimed the message which God had committed to them to
be given to the world, yet through a misapprehension of its meaning they
suffered disappointment....
With these believers, as with the first disciples, that which in the hour
of trial seemed dark to their understanding would afterward be made plain.
When they should see the “end of the Lord” they would know that, notwith-
standing the trial resulting from their errors, His purposes of love toward
them had been steadily fulfilling. They would learn by a blessed experience
that He is “very pitiful, and of tender mercy;” that all His paths “are mercy
and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.”
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